time
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "time", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "time" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "time" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
time is aEnglishnoun. It means: The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events. Pronounced /taɪm/. It ranks #60 in English word frequency. Often confused with TM and tom.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | time |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /taɪm/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #60 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for time is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /taɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #60 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 27 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for time, with forms such as "itme", "tiem", and "timme". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TM", "tom", "tip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favorable time, opportunity”), from Proto-West Germanic *tīmō, from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”), from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂imō, from Pro… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is time, spelled T-I-M-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
- 2The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
- 3The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
- 4The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
- 5The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
- 6A duration of time.
- 7A duration of time.
- 8A duration of time.
- 9A duration of time.
- 10A duration of time.
- 11A duration of time.
- 12A duration of time.
- 13An instant of time.
- 14An instant of time.
- 15An instant of time.
- 16An instant of time.
- 17An instant of time.
- 18An instant of time.
- 19An instant of time.
- 20The measurement under some system of region of day or moment.
- 21A ratio of comparison (see also usage notes and prepositional sense at 'times').
- 22The measured duration of sounds.
- 23The measured duration of sounds.
- 24The measured duration of sounds.
- 25The measured duration of sounds.
- 26Synonym of tense
- 27Clipping of a long time.
Etymology
From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favorable time, opportunity”), from Proto-West Germanic *tīmō, from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”), from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂imō, from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂y- (“to divide”). Related to tide. Not related to Latin tempus. Cognates * Scots tym, tyme (“time”) * Alemannic German Zimen, Zīmmän (“time, time of the year, opportune time, opportunity”) * Danish time (“hour, lesson”) * Elfdalian taime (“hour”) * Faroese tími (“hour, lesson, time”) * Icelandic tími (“time, season”) * Norwegian time (“lesson, hour”) * Swedish timma, timme (“hour”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: itme,tiem,timme,tmie,ttime
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for time
Misspelling Variants of "time"
Frequency rank: #60 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: